The document discusses moving from individual contributor roles like designer or information architect into management roles. It provides advice on acquiring business skills and people skills to gain influence within an organization. It also outlines different paths one can take, such as becoming a general manager, consultant, or starting one's own company.

1. Managing Up Business Strategy and Information Architecture

2. About our firm The Management Innovation Group (MIG) is a research group and strategic consultancy. We are dedicated to improving our clients’ ability to identify, plan for, and adapt to strategic change by enabling them to more effectively collaborate across functional units, understand and engage their customers, and envision the future. At the heart of our approach is a belief that design offers a rich set of tools useful not just for creating physical products, but as a means for clarifying intentions, understanding options, organizing processes, and motivating action.

3. Who do you want to be when you grow UP?

4. CEO?

5. “ We will never make progress as long we are resources and not leaders. Resources don't discuss the business plan, the marketing strategy. Resources don't help decide what the product or service will be in the first place. Resources are called in when the leaders think they are needed. They do their job and then get out of the way.” - Don Norman A quote

6. “ The core competencies of design facilitate specific and tangible ways of engaging with problems. These competencies bring new value to the way in which business teams work. To foster the broad application of design competence, designers will need to feel confident in leaving the designer label behind and accepting the label of business manager, strategist, or vice president. Of course, this is no big leap for the best in any discipline; one will find engineers, accountants, and human resources professionals at the helms of organizations around the world. However, at that point, they are simply called leaders . - Chris Conley, “Leveraging Design’s Core Competencies”

7. Why bother? Problems They don’t understand what I do We get called in too late I don’t want to be a colorist Desires I want real influence I want to change how business is done I want to get promoted (and don’t want to get fired)

8. What does it take to be a leader? Business skills People skills Will Lucky Accidents We’ll help you with the first two. On Will… The most required aspects necessary to succeed as a CEO are: on, tenacity; two, perseverance; three, the ability to come back on your own behalf; four, the conviction you know you are right no matter what; and five, the commitment to make things happen Leonard Abramson CEO and President U.S. Healthcare From “How to think like a CEO” by D.A. Benton

9. Speak the language Or quit saying “people would take me seriously if I could prove my ROI”

10. Everything You Need to Know About ROI

11. The Dilemma of “Value” Cost Justifying Usability Questionable Value: CJU based on productivity calculations (e.g. time on task); does this deliver measurable value? Questionable Indicators: A web site can be entirely usable and still not deliver business value Traditional ROI analysis ROI = (returns – expenses) / total costs Used to assign a dollar value to a capital expenditure based on expected returns over its useful life Capital expenditures are hard assets … things like equipment, stores, IT, etc.

12. Everything You Need to Know About ROI (in one slide) ROI Return Investment This formula is NOT on the test: NPV =Σ((Cash flow in t)/(1+i)t )

13. User Experience Return on Investment All your CEO cares about … Returns (measurable changes) Increased sales Reduced costs Achieving the mission (for a non-profit) Investments (cost of making change happen) Keeping headcount low Using resources more effectively Only bringing in consultants if necessary “ ROI” is just a fancy estimate accountants use to make decisions

14. The Importance of User Behavior User Needs: UCD process - research, intuition, high-level vision Design affects what the tool does -> user tasks But we don’t control user needs, right? How do we measure the effectiveness of the UCD process? User Behavior: Valuation process - data mining, project finance, accountability Business measures how well the tool does it -> metrics This is the litmus test for what the business can control

15. Why Traditional ROI is a Red Herring ROI is a method for comparing BIG investments Small incremental user experience improvements can be just as valuable as “big” projects “ Useful life” doesn’t apply to user experience Website is not a tangible asset, like equipment or property Investment is fixed in the short term (usually by headcount) How Valuation Methodology is Helpful Reconciling user needs and business goals Prioritizing possible user experience projects Assessing baseline financial performance of your website Determining accountability / Evangelizing success

16. About Business Things you should know to have a conversation

17. The Five Questions What does it means to be responsible for profit & loss? What is the difference between expense and investment? What are the key metrics for your business unit? What market are you in? What is your unique value proposition?

18. Profit and Loss

19. Investment vs. expense Location Location Location

20. The Market Stock Location Advertising Differentiation Diversifying Pricing

21. Got Metrics? Do you know what matters?

22. Web Experience Metrics Development: Reduce Costs Development Costs Development Time Maintenance Costs Redesign Costs Sales: Increase Revenue Transactions/ purchases Product sales Traffic, audience size Customer retention Appeal Market Share Use: Improve Effectiveness Success rate/user error Efficiency/productivity User Satisfaction Job Satisfaction Ease of use Ease of learning Trust Support costs Training/documentation Return on Investment for Usable User-Interface Design , Aaron Marcus

23. User Experience Also Influences… Web Metrics Total page views Page views per session Click paths Unique visitors Return visitors Conversion rate (sales, reservations, applications, etc.) Business Metrics Leads Sales Retention Length of sales cycle Productivity Development costs Customer Satisfaction

24. What market are you in? Media Advertising Subscription Single purchase Commerce Profit margin Customer retention Broker Transactions Users Liquidity

25. Direct IA Metrics ?

26. Karen Donoghue’s Framework from Built for Use 1. Convert browsers to customers and increase client base Prospective customer (i.e. Browser) 2. Increase retention rate 3. Deepen existing customer relationships 4. Increase productivity inside firm Existing Customer Existing Customer Employee inside of firm Relationship-establishing activity Relationship-retaining behavior Relationship-deepening activity Creation of usable data about profitable and cost-efficient transactions Researching firm, requesting information and follow-up Increasing frequency of engagement, level of membership Increase number of points of contact with customer Action based on understanding and analysis of transaction and data usage Business Goals User Online Experience Must Drive… Desired User Behaviors…

27. Parts of Design (arguably) Identity User research Interface design IA Interaction Design Graphic design design

28. Parts of Business (arguably) Innovation Management Strategy HR Finance Accounting Operations Marketing Business

29. Clement says… IP Artifacts Strategy Design ROI Products Managing Envisioning How What

30. Moving value

31. The Origins of Strategy “ That general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.” circa 500 BC -Sun Tzu, The Art of War

32. Strategy “Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable positioning, involving a different set of activities.” Strategy is in making tradeoffs in competing. The essence of strategy is deciding what not to do .” Strategy is making fit among a companies’ activities” Michael Porter “What is Strategy”

33. A Strategy is a unified, comprehensive and integrated plan designed to ensure that the basic objectives of the organization are achieved Strategic Planning is that set of decisions and actions which leads to the development of an effective strategy -- Colin Boyd, Professor of Management, University of Saskatchewan

34. Porter's Generic Strategies Niche Positioning Product Differentiation Cost Leadership It is probably easier to establish a niche position when the market is growing = PRODUCT MANAGEMENT + DESIGN SKILLS When the pie is growing, no one is fighting too hard for market share, and hence differentiation is possible in the growth stages of the life cycle = MARKETING SKILLS + DESIGN SKILLS A mature market means a fight for market share via price competition, which in turns puts all the attention on product costs = MANUFACTURING SKILLS + DESIGN SKILLS

35. IA– hard to copy

36. Know your value Why are you valuable to the business that is unique to your role ? Why can Design help Why can IA help Why can User Research help Do you know the answer?

37. Exercise List your strengths.. All of them Cross out those that aren’t relevant to business Cross out those that others can offer Now you have your core value (Note: great to do in a weekly staff meeting!)

38. Three Stories on IA Value

39. The Sa les Argument Once there were people with cows And people without cows The people with no cows were hungry

40. They took to the road And met at the market And the people with no cows bought cows The people with cows had fewer cows, but money for other things

41. Now there are people with information And people with no information The road is the computer And the market is the web

42. But the market is really big And the people can’t find each other So we have ignorant people And people with no money The cows are okay with this Business is not.

43. The Goal The players Users, seeking information (cowless) Businesses with information (with cows) Intermediaries such as search engines and directories, profiting on the exchange (marketplaces) The goal is to get the users seeking the data to the businesses offering the data

44. Missing information is expensive “ The Fortune 1000 stands to waste at least $2.5 billion per year due to an inability to locate and retrieve information .” “ While the costs of not finding information are enormous , they are hidden within the enterprise, and…are rarely perceived as having an impact on the bottom line.” The High Cost of Not Finding Information An IDC White Paper, July 2001.

45. The Brand Argument

46. Branding in 10 seconds create fullfilled by Brian Collins’ Model of Brand brand promises brand experiences Brand managers

47. Brand and the User Experience Hugh Dubberly’s Model of Brand Creating a good customer experience is the essence of good branding

48. IA Realizes Brand

49. Product Quality = Brand Loyalty I get asked a lot why Apple's customers are so loyal . It's not because they belong to the Church of Mac! That's ridiculous. It's because when you buy our products, and three months later you get stuck on something, you quickly figure out [how to get past it]. And you think, "Wow, someone over there at Apple actually thought of this!" And then three months later you try to do something you hadn't tried before, and it works, and you think "Hey, they thought of that, too." And then six months later it happens again. There's almost no product in the world that you have that experience with, but you have it with a Mac . And you have it with an iPod .

50. Argument three: IA and Trust

51. Dewey Decimal System 200-299 – Religion Categories 40+ categories related to Christianity 1 for Judaism 1 for Islam (& related)

52. Who Cares? Religious Scholars Librarians Information Architects Jews and Muslims

53. Classification reflects social and cultural organization Information Architect must understand this context We can change how people think via classification and labeling

54. Frames Voter revolt Tax Relief War on terror Free Market Poison free George Lakoff, author of “Don’t Think of an Elephant

55. Business reframes

56. Design Look 46.1% Information Design/Structure 28.5% Information Focus 25.1% Company Motive 15.5% Information Usefulness 14.8% Information Accuracy 14.3% Name Recognition & Reputation 14.1% Advertising 13.8% Information Bias 11.6% Writing Tone 9.0% Identity of Site Operator 8.8% Site Functionality 8.6% Customer Service 6.4% Past Experience with Site 4.6% Information Clarity 3.7% Performance on Test by User 3.6% Readability 3.6% Affiliations 3.4% “ While information structure is often associated with usability , the comments here show how information structure has implications for credibility . Sites that were easy to navigate were seen as being more credible.”

57. Okay, I’m sold Now what?

58. Paths for Designers & IA’s Designer decides they want to move up Choose business (PM, Strategist, Analyst Chooses design Chooses Individual contributor Becomes General manager Chooses management Chooses entrepreneurship Solo Work Builds company Becomes CD Leaves for company with growth Becomes VP Switches to general management Becomes VP of BU Becomes SVP of BU Becomes CPO, or equiv Becomes CEO Chooses growth Chooses entrepreneurship Consulting Builds Start-up Sells to Yahoo for 25 mil Deep specialization

59. What does it take to manage? Business Knowledge People Skills (up, down across) Leadership and Vision

60. Moving Up in Influence Manager New Employee Employee Director & Up Needs Help for everything Self-Sufficient, Contributes Individually Contributes via others Contributes via influencing organizations From “Novations” by Gene W. Dalton

61. “ Perhaps an MBA is not the best degree to lead a company to success afterall.” “ We need broad generalists to successfully run large, complex organizations.” - Richard Kovacevich, CEO Wells Fargo & Co.

62. Business Turns Its Eye Toward Design

63. Business Diagram from Design of Business by Roger Martin, U of Toronto

64. Trends: re-designing design We do not imagine the production of form to be the endpoint of design. We look for something more difficult and tenuous: to engage as directly as possible the environment within which design occurs . - Bruce Mau, Life Style

65. Adapted from The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning by Henry Mintzberg (1993) 10% 90% 90% The paradigm “ ready, aim, fire ” no longer applies; it is now “ ready, fire, steer .” Paul Saffo

66. We get there.. Eventually.

67. Quality is not (always) the point Market Segmentation Identify segmentation variables and segment the market Develop profiles of resulting segments Market Targeting Evalute the attractiveness of each segment Select the target segments Product Positioning Identify possible positioning concepts for each target segment Select, develop and communicate the selected positioning concept

68. The person who is in charge is me!

69. Seven Surprises for Design Managers Surprise One: You Can’t Design Anymore Surprise Two: You Are Still Designing Surprise Three: Giving Orders Is Costly Surprise Four: You Are Always Sending a Message Surprise Five: You Are Not the Boss Surprise Six: Pleasing Your Boss is Not Your Goal Surprise Seven: You Are Still Only Human Also see Peter Druckers “ Seven Suprises for New CEOs”

70. CEO or CXO? (or cmo, cio, cpo)